Contact centers that fail to plan for attrition will suffer significant financial and workplace consequences. It costs the 100-seat center $25.52 in lost productivity every hour a seat goes unfilled. The worst-case scenario is a center that reacts after attrition occurs. If it takes 74 days to fill an opening with a trained agent, it costs the center $15,108 in lost productivity. Understaffing increases pressure on workers to maintain service levels and negatively affects CXs. Every open seat...

Attrition is one of the contact center industry’s biggest and most controllable problems. The constant outflow of talent erodes margins,...

Contact centers rarely use new-hire learning curve data to estimate lost productivity and create a capacity plan. Learning curve data summarize the time it takes for a new agent to perform proficiently. Mark Alpern estimates that, in the first year of employment, new hires are 67% as efficient as agents with at least one year of tenure. Learning curve results for 1,800 agents from eight centers appear in the chart below. On average, agents are 53% as efficient in the first month of...